The Skin Room Read online

  I pulled out onto a smaller, backroad and never looked back. There was an awkward moment when I heard a parroting female voice on the truck’s intercom. I had to pull the plug, not knowing what to say, or in what accent to say it. Well, her voice died, and I had silence for my travels, a good, fat dose of it, hearing only the chug-chugging of the tractor-like engine, admiring the crystal coast as it came near then swung away. I trundled in middle gears around the switchback loops and curves, driving like a seasoned pro.

  3

  Messina: a multilayered city under a yellow sun. All roads sloped down to the sea, a tinselly blue. Cars were double-parked everywhere. These Sicilians: mad double-parkers, all of them. Even the policemen did it.

  I pulled into a parking space under a palm tree and abandoned the truck. Had I been followed? Hard to say. The policemen, if any, were keeping a low profile. Now I needed to hitchhike, if that was the correct term for a boat ride out of here. I took one last look over my shoulder at the roofs of the town and the cocoa-brown hills.

  No turning back now, Mr. Orpheus.

  I strolled down to the harbor, past the cafés and crammed apartment blocks. I had a rough idea where the boat would be docked as I had been to this marina before. The last time, I recalled, Sonia had been in tears, her make-up blurred, her fists pulled up inside her sleeves. She had shifted her weight from one high heel to the other, coughing a lot, her eyes traced with thunder. It was one of my dumb rescue attempts. She went back to him, of course. She always did.

  I approached one man who was standing smoking a cigarette on the dock. His fingers were thin-boned, ice-white. He had the steady and rather spooky focus in his eyes of a paid watchman.

  “Hi, are you in the boat business?” I said. “I’m looking for the Sant’Agata.”

  He dragged on his cigarette, the smoke fogging his face.

  “Down there,” he said, in a bass voice. “Not my kind of boat.”

  “Your kind?”

  He shook his dark hair. “Strange cargo.”

  He flicked his cigarette away. It flashed like a meteorite over the harbor wall.

  “Have a nice evening.” He touched his temple and turned away.

  I took out my phone and tried calling Sonia’s number: still no answer. Where the hell was she? I strode along the wooden jetty, looking for the Sant’Agata. After a few minutes of futile searching I saw it at the end of the harbor: an impressive ship, built like a ferry, boasting a series of mounted antennae and a ramp at the back for cargo-loading. I approached the gangway which looked flimsy, like an old rope bridge that tilted and pitched as I lumbered across. Up on the deck I saw two men standing hunched in black coats. One had skeletal cheeks; his eyes silver. The other was younger and smaller, standing cramped like an insect inside a jar.

  “What’s this?” said the skull-faced, silver-eyed one.

  Insect Boy leaned toward me. “This is a private boat, man. Now fuck off if you don’t want no trouble.”

  “I’m Sonia’s brother. I don’t think we’ve met.” I reached out my hand and they both stared at it, as though examining its isolation. My hand returned to my side, untouched.

  Silver Eyes seemed to brighten. “Sonia who?”

  “Melville.”

  “And what the hell are you doing here?” said Insect Boy. He had a big neck and bad teeth.

  “I kind of need her, I mean, your help.”

  Insect Boy folded his arms and tilted his head up, looking marginally taller. “What kind of help?”

  “I need a ride,” I said.

  “We don’t take hitchhikers.”

  “Listen, I know about her and Carlo. He probably knows about me. So, if you’ll just let me see him, I’m sure we...”

  Silver Eyes shook his head. “Carlo is busy today. Absolutely no interruptions.”

  Insect Boy leered at me. His breath smelled of parmesan cheese. “Very important business.”

  “You got that?” said Silver Eyes. “So, why don’t you get the fuck off the boat now and come back tomorrow. We’ll tell him you stopped by.”

  “It’s not that easy,” I said, looking behind me. “I really need to come aboard.”

  “Did you hear that, Paolo?” said Insect Boy, turning to his friend. “He really needs.” He turned back to me. “What you need is this, man.” From the back of his jeans he pulled out a lead-colored pistol with a square barrel.

  I didn’t like the idea of being downed and spread-eagled by a bullet on a quayside, a killing notched up to these delinquents, so I took a step back. Perhaps I needed a change of plan.

  “Listen, man.” He moved stealthily forward, looking left and right, as though to check if he was being watched. “You think we let any asshole onto this boat?”

  I almost wished I had taken a knife or even a damn screwdriver with me now. It seemed as though I had come to the wrong place, in the wrong way. I wondered how Sonia could stand it in such company. She was a free spirit, able to mix with all kinds of people, much more accustomed to life on the wild side.

  I could see the first blow coming but was so surprised that I stood rigid, mouth open. The angle of lead split my vision; the pistol swishing down and cracking my brow. Blood slid down my face and splashed my shirt as I stood bent, gasping for air. I saw the boot fly toward me, and ducked, but it struck me in the ribs and I bit the gangway. The air gassed out of me. Elements of the cosmos veered close and whirled like lottery balls behind my eyes.

  I lay there, eyes closed, trembling. I opened my eyes gradually, flinching, afraid of the next blow. Instead I saw the scenery shifting—the sky turning over my head as my legs were hoisted into the air.

  “Come on, Giorgio, pull your fuckin’ weight.”

  “He sure is one heavy bastard.”

  My back scraped along the metal deck. Through my blood-soaked gaze, I could just make out the wooden ceiling of the boat, the pieces of equipment, radios, the wires everywhere. It was like being dragged through the insides of a gigantic bomb during a surreal nightmare.

  “We’ll deal with him later,” said Silver Eyes.

  “Right.” Insect Boy stooped even further than his frame would appear to allow, and glared down at me. “Keep quiet, you fucking shithead.”

  “You can bleed all you want,” Silver Eyes laughed. “But don’t speak, don’t even squeak.”

  I was shoved into a small dark room. They slammed a white metal door. Clank. A bolt shifted across. Shlack.

  A prisoner. I was aware of a certain irony in my fate. The hunter hunted. L’arroseur arrosé. My ribs ached and I could barely see out of one eye. It was dark, anyhow, in the cell. There was the smell of sea wrack and stale fishing gear. My clothes were damp. I reached down and touched a fishing net, damp with slime. It was so damned hot, it felt like 90oF. I was disgusted by my condition and angered by my pain. I wrung my hands and longed for soap and water. I scratched my temples and wanted to wash my hair. I tried to take my jacket off but my right arm had ceased to work.

  I dropped my head onto a lifebuoy, gave way to exhaustion, and shut my eyes, hoping to wake up in a different country, in somebody else’s life.

  I dreamed I was running with my sister, Sonia. The air smelled of the wet autumn leaves that littered the ground, purple, yellow, and brown. We scampered over chalk lines, past other boys in shorts with long gray socks, and girls with skipping ropes. Sonia ran ahead and I chased her, laughing. She was running so fast she tripped and skidded on the concrete, and fell down, grazing her knee. I hurried to her side and crouched beside her, worried in case she was hurt.

  I touched her knee. The scrape was oval, pink. I pressed my finger gently on the flayed patch of skin. You could see the underneath, the undertone.

  She flicked back her blonde hair and stared at me.

  “Ow,” she muttered. “Don’t touch.”

  “The top layer has come right off.” I kept staring at her wound.

  “What are you looking at? Are you crazy? Help me up. Ouch.”

&nbs
p; I took her hand and pulled her to her feet. She leaned on my arm as we hobbled across the playground, the glare of the orange afternoon sun in our eyes.

  I kept thinking about the exposed layer, the pinkness. It was a revelation to me. I started concentrating in biology lessons from then on—there was stuff I wanted to learn. I didn’t care about planet Earth, I wanted to learn about the human body, its internal circuits, everything from aching gums to the excrescence of toenails. It was the start of something deep.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Sonia as we entered school.

  “You had such a funny look on your face.” She giggled.

  It was kind of recurring dream which had its basis in reality: a replay from a vivid school day in our childhood. I was eleven and she was seven. Memories.

  I woke up and vomited on my shoes. My head was buzzing from the pistol crack. On waking, the pain was resurrected. I was angry with myself for having come on board and being stupid enough to seek help. Maybe I should have checked into a roach motel somewhere, changed my name, dyed my hair. Gone through the hallowed rites of The Man In Hiding.

  Instead I coughed up flecks of mozzarella-and-ham panino and a deeper, brownish bile. I pushed my finger into the side of my nose and blew out gritty flecks from one nostril. I did the same the other side and freed up my breathing. My mouth tasted of venom. I saw through only one eye now. A vomity Cyclops.

  I hunted around the cubicle for something to use to clean myself up. There was nothing, no paper, just dry seaweed, ropes and fishing tackle. Then I realized what had made me retch on waking: the smell of dead fish. I vomited once more.

  Soon I heard revving motors and felt the motion of the sea, the rise and bounce of waves. This meant we had left port, and, despite my seasickness, I felt relieved. The police were far behind.

  There was the drone of the ship’s engine, the swell and slap of the waves, and another sound, thinner, harder to discern. I tried to pick out this frequency amidst all the background noise. What was it? The sound of voices, perhaps, but young voices, yes, children, a faint sound, murmuring or suppressed, as though…

  I was sick again, this time with fright. What would children be doing on a boat owned by Carlo? More to the point: how could Sonia be involved in such dark affairs?

  There was a bang on the door.

  “Wake up, sailor boy. Dinner time.”

  4

  The door swung toward me and I had to draw up my knees to let it open. I saw Insect Boy and felt sick again but this time I swallowed and kept the vomit down.

  “Help me out of here,” I groaned.

  “Jesus, he’s covered in…”

  “What a stink.”

  Electric light hurtled into the cell. I squinted, looked down at my watch: 9 p.m. The thugs approached and I raised my hands in gruesome anticipation.

  “Don’t hit me,” I muttered. “I’m just came here to look for my sister. Don’t fucking hit me again.”

  Silver Eyes swooped down to my level. A lamp lit his face and I saw his muscular jaw working as he spoke. “You look like shit,” he said. “And smell worse.”

  My state of uncleanliness was freaking me out too. I couldn’t stand the odor of my own clothes, my fishy sweat, my blood-tasting mouth. I wanted to shout out but I felt too dizzy and too ill. Besides, nobody would hear me, not out here on the ocean.

  “Drink this.” He handed me a plastic cup of coffee with fingers curled like the legs of a tarantula. Had somebody bludgeoned those? I took the cup and saw a tremor on the surface of the liquid and wondered if it was my hand or the boat that was trembling. Probably both. I drank the coffee and felt both better and worse. More awake, more sick.

  “Can I go out on deck? I feel awful.”

  “You sure look it,” said Silver Eyes.

  “What happened to your fingers?” I asked.

  “Shut the fuck up.” He helped me to my feet by hoisting me up under one arm. He smelled of ashtrays and dried-up sweat.

  He pushed me through the white metal door. “Keep movin’.”

  I staggered forward and rubbed the scar over my eye.

  “I’m sorry I had to hit you,” he said, leaning close, maybe hoping his friend wouldn’t hear.

  “No, you’re not,” said the other.

  “Shut it, you. I was just saying to Mr. Melville here … we didn’t rightly know who he was. Had to check your documents, didn’t we?” He turned to me with a wretched look on his face. A man of many sins, a merchant of fear.

  I tapped my pockets. Money, passport, cell phone, car keys, gone: check.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “It’s not up to us,” said Insect Boy.

  As we stepped out onto the upper deck, there was crow-black water and violet skies. The boat nodded into the waves. I looked around and saw no land and was glad we had left the coast behind. I breathed in the salty air while the breeze flicked up my hair. The sea was mosso, choppy. No wonder I had been hurling below deck.

  “Il signor Riccio will decide.”

  “Il signor Riccio? You mean Carlo, Sonia’s boyfriend.”

  “Ex,” said Silver Eyes.

  My thoughts took a sharp turn. Was Sonia OK?

  “Where’s my...?”

  “Shut up, and take in the view.”

  I saw the moon like a smooth, white pebble suspended in a darkening sky. Spittle from a wave sprayed my face.

  “So where’s Carlo?” I asked, after a while.

  “Patience. Had some trouble below.”

  Strange cargo, that was the term. And just how strange was strange? It could be as innocuous as a marijuana plantation, or as virulent as the trafficking of young innocents. My mind conjured up all sorts of twisted, money-making schemes.

  Sonia could sure pick her companions: if you showed her a nice guy and a shit guy, she would pick out the shit guy every time.

  “None of my business.” I stared down at my blood-flecked, vomit-specked shoes.

  “That’s a good start,” said Insect Boy. “You’ll do just fine. Who knows? You might just fit right in here.”

  “Might have no choice.” Silver Eyes sniggered.

  I wasn’t sure which one of them I liked least. Silver Eyes had a careless voice, the face of a man with few regrets, whose conscience flagged up little. He had a stiff and unemotional bearing, and moved with no waste of energy, having the precise movements of a mechanic. He acted as though he had at least been to school, even if he hadn’t listened in class. Insect Boy, on the other hand, had probably never made it near a school. He maybe couldn’t even read. He spoke in a sing-song Italian dialect that was not from these parts; Neapolitan, perhaps. I would ask him, if I ever got the chance. But right now my head was hurting too much and my digestive system was constantly churning its little remaining contents. I turned over my palms. They smelled of fishing nets and stomach bile.

  “Can I use the bathroom?” I asked.

  Insect Boy pointed to the black sea. “Nature’s piss pot.”

  “I have to wash my hands,” I said.

  Silver Eyes nodded, put his hand on my back, and pushed me into a small room. It was not much larger than a standing coffin and my shoulders brushed the sides of the door as I entered. I pressed one hand against the wall and held my dick with the other, aiming at the hole as I piddled gratefully. The boat rocked so hard I pissed over my shoes—at least it washed off some of the blood and the sick.

  I turned to the sink and twisted the faucet. No soap, but I spent a good five minutes rubbing my hands under the watery trickle. No paper or towels either, so I had to dry my hands on my jacket. Felt angry with myself again, I was so messed and fucked up. Should never have stepped onto this goddamned boat.

  I pressed my forehead against the mirror and shut my eyes.

  A knock on the door ended my reverie.

  “Out now, sailor.”

  Why did they keep calling me sailor? I was anything but.

  I heard that noise again as we climbed the steps
toward the top deck: a chorus of muted cries. One could almost mistake it for the sound of seagulls, if only…

  “Keep moving.” He prodded me in the back. “Carlo is ready now. He wants to see you.”

  In my imagination, I’d figured Carlo Riccio would be a pretty sullen guy. Sonia’s ideal man would be a young Marlon Brando, I figured. A brooding, malevolent presence. Yet here was Carlo: a diminutive figure, Napoleonesque, looking bright-eyed, upbeat, cheerful, as though to cover up or compensate for a slight nervousness. He could have been a semi-trustworthy accountant or rather shady banker. He strode across the deck with a well-prepared smile on his face, as though I was an old acquaintance of his, someone he was determined not to forget. I’d expected him to shake my outstretched hand, instead he stood up on tiptoe to kiss me on both cheeks. He smelled of musk, and of milk. He held me by the arms and looked me up and down, keeping that unfailing smile of his the whole time. He had uneven, over-tanned skin and his long black hair was swept back in unwashed locks. With his rugged appearance, he bore an unlikely resemblance to a bust I had once seen of the composer, Beethoven.

  “Alex, so good to see you.” His voice was surprisingly thin and waspish. I’d somehow expected a deeper tone.

  He spat out fragments of nutshell onto the deck and they ricocheted near my feet. I noticed the deck was peppered with spat shells.

  “Good to meet you, finally,” I said, touching the side of my head. “Even if I can only see you through one eye.”

  “A nasty bruise, by the look of it” he said. “Apologies. Want some ice?”

  I nodded.

  Carlo clicked his fingers and Insect Boy scuttled away.

  “Times are tough,” he said. “You’ve got to watch your tail. Or someone else will bite it off.”

  “You have my passport,” I said, “my money.”

  “Those will be returned to you.” He waved a hand. “Eventually.”